


opportunity and threat.

by reaperangelique



Series: mars may sell you kingdoms, but venus crowned me queen. [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Drama, F/M, Historical, Historical Hetalia, Nyotalia, Relationship Problems, Romance?, idk it's just two conversations basically, to say the least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reaperangelique/pseuds/reaperangelique
Summary: She gets married a lot, but sometimes she doesn't. Two reactions.A quickfic written for some prompt about weddings or something. Part of my Main Continuity™ (the one with the mixed up Nyotalia history stuff).





	opportunity and threat.

**Author's Note:**

> the first bit is around ~1732- i think. the second is, i guess, around the end of 1866 or early '67.

When Hungary caught wind of a brief suggestion of _marriage_ \- how brief, he couldn’t say for certain, and that was a little alarming- he paid a visit to her study in the palace, during her office hours, so to speak. A mark of his attentiveness, given that they occurred perhaps once or twice a month, and only until lunchtime.

They let him in, and Austria greeted him without moving from her work. To begin with, he made a good attempt at speaking only of social trifles and minor business, accepting coffee from a quiet attendant flitting in and out; mostly, he sat still on a couch at the far end of the big, wooden room, watching her at her big, wooden desk, like some forbidding clerk in an oppressive waiting room. She should have looked out of place, a born aristocrat poring over ledgers, but somehow she didn't; his imagination ran to fanciful places as he carried on a stilted conversation, considering all the horrors and pleasures of this bureaucratic version of her. He couldn't appreciate her dark gown, the way she was sitting, but he could hear her sleeves rustling, pens scratching, papers whispering against each other. It had to be the loudest silence he had ever encountered- he spent little time in studies and chambers of learning. A little mournfully, he realised she was hardly paying attention to the richly embroidered riding suit he wore, either.

He held out for something like twenty minutes in this torture chamber, before he came to the point, eyeing the dark panels of the high ceiling and speaking evenly, or so he hoped.

"Ah, so...is it true, then, that- there are talks of marriage? For the Archduchess," he hastily clarified.

She took a moment to look up from her papers, or perhaps a dish of bonbons concealed behind them. "There are always talks of marriage. Are you concerned about the Prussian prince?"

"I- yes! Then it is true?" Her immediate cut to the chase shocked him into blurting out an approximation of the truth, all pretense dropped, although he wouldn't outright _say_ that it wasn't the _prince_ that concerned him. That was a step too far, here in her office, even for him who had won her confidences, even if it was about their common enemy. What if she had made a decision? Was it his place to question it?

A hundred questions raced by in a heartbeat, and Austria paused again, agonisingly- her slow, calculated responses could drive a man to distraction. "Hardly. An unsuitable prospect for a husband if I ever saw one."

His breath of relief was audible, but she had the good grace not to comment on it, so he coughed politely. "Because he's a sodomite?"

"Because he is a Protestant." She shook her head at a ledger before her, closed it, and pushed it aside to better concentrate on whatever dainty she was dipping into her coffee. "And he wanted us to make too many _concessions_. Besides, his father is quite mad. We have had enough of _that_ in this dynasty."

"Really?" Hungary’s smile was rather guileless, but Austria gave him a narrow-eyed look; it stayed on her face as, cup empty, she got up and crossed the room, tiring of this month's shift.

"I have avoided an undesirable match this time, but one must be prepared to seize opportunities as they arise, Ungarn- and sometimes they come in the hands of the enemy...the mad, the power-hungry, the religiously fanatical..."

As she swept out of the door, expecting him to follow, he caught the flash of a heavy golden cross around her neck; he couldn't help but nervously readjust his collar.

-

And so, after more than a century’s worth of mistakes had passed them by-

\- when Prussia heard that Austria would be pretending to elevate Hungary in status, in a desperately transparent attempt to rescue herself- cannibalism, he called it, and he almost approved of the ruthlessness, even that directed at himself.

But he showed up at her door, catching her as she was about to take a trip- whether accidentally or purposefully, it was all the same.

"You're marrying him."

"Remove this man," she said, sounding bored, and he struggled with hapless servants while she climbed into her coach. But she was slow, with that umbrella and those boots and that _bustle_ ; his eyes burned as he persisted, in a way that they shouldn't have been able to, mirroring as they did the cloudy grey sky. The fine drizzle dampened his hair to his forehead, and hung in the cloth of his uniform at his shoulders, much as the atmosphere seemed to weigh heavily on his voice.

"So you are- _h-hah_ \- get _off_ me- does he know why? Does he know why, Österreich?!" He wasn't entirely sure what he was saying, his question foolish to his own ears, and she seemed aware, regarding him coolly from the carriage window, where she sat drowning in pale blue silk; there was no colour anywhere in either of them, or in the day around them, all heat extinguished, it seemed, except deep in the pit of his chest. He was wrong, stupid to think of only _her_ as desperate-

"Listen- Österreich..." He hadn't dared to speak to her for months, the last time had been a disaster. He’d been willing to bury the hatchet right away, not fully realising that it wasn’t his to bury, and that in fact, she might rather cut his throat with it. He was remembering now. He thought he'd been avoiding her of his own volition, but no, he hadn't dared, had he? "You can't- "

He always said the wrong things.

"I am," she said, and his heart seized at all the unspoken reasoning, the cold pragmatism she would relate to him if she could tolerate conversation, the condemnation of him, and the endorsement of _a better man_ she would never voice. "I am, Preußen. I shall send you a formal invitation in due course."

And she left with a rattle of wheels and the clip of hooves, and he didn't fight off the guards at the gate or even protest; he watched the rain run in rivers down her coach window before he realised it was doing the same to him, and wondered if her face could be wet like his. It gave him a strange comfort to imagine her becoming emotional, but he felt a violent dislike of himself for it, all the same.

She did send an invitation, in the end, or she had someone send it on her behalf. Spite, or propriety. They so often coincided, with her.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> first part: old fritz (when he was young fritz) was being pressured to marry, and he apparently suggested maria theresia himself at the time, but nothing came of it.  
> second: austria made plans to become a dual monarchy with hungary, quick-sharp after the losses of the austro-prussian war (like, within months). i haven't covered the war itself in any fic yet, but i have extensive Thoughts about how it plays out in this universe. suffice it to say, the relationship deteriorates almost irreparably in the lead up to the war, and doesn't begin to approach recovery for some decades after (i'll tentatively name ww1 as a turning point), so that's. fun.
> 
> why's prussia het up about her marrying someone else after he just utterly betrayed and devastated her? because he's a dumb fuck, that's why


End file.
